Eleventy One
Eleventy One: 15 September 2024
The annual church Family Retreat wrapped up today with a worship service in the Bonclarken chapel. As my friend Jan and I agreed afterwards, it gets us every year in a way that other Communion services don’t. I think it’s being cracked open and vulnerable from the weekend reflections, but also, previous years feel present. I remember the first time our kids wanted to sit with a cluster of friends instead of with us. I remember times that I’ve brought anger, exhaustion, fear, or gratitude with me to the Table. Sometimes all at once.
The retreat theme was about knowing your story, sharing your story, and using that knowledge to help chart your future dreams. The individual story, the fellowship of community, the individual and collective dreaming.
On another, fictional, September day, Frodo and Bilbo Baggins celebrated their past adventures and future dreams. It was Frodo’s 33rd birthday, the age to come into inheritance. And as Bilbo declared at the grand celebration, “Today is my One Hundred and Eleventh birthday! Alas, eleventy one years is far too short a time to live among such excellent and admirable Hobbits. I don't know half of you half as well as I should like and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.”
The ensuring confusion, along with some wizard fireworks, covered his escape to a quiet retirement among the elves, and launched Frodo into his own adventures. I have always liked the poetry of eleventy one and this, good heavens!, is my eleventy first essay. Thank you for sticking with me these eight years and more, you excellent and admirable readers.
What I’ve learned from writing an essay every month is to pay attention. That, in fact, was why I started writing. Life was going so fast with little kids. The waking hours seemed like all the hours, and they all were a blur. Plus, a lot of the time I was bored. It’s exhausting to pay strict yet mind numbing attention to toddler tasks, needs, and probable-death impulses.
But sometimes the insights were profound. One time Emma, pointing to green pants, said “This is kinda cute. It kinda rhymes with this,” pointing to a purple striped tunic with green trim. And it did! Ever since, I’ve thought of my writing as pointing to the way so many disparate things rhyme.
Last weekend was girls’ weekend since Mark and Jack were both out of town. Friday night Emma and I watched the original Beetlejuice and then went ice skating. Mark’s text reaction was perfect: Wow! Good for you…Have you lost your mind? I wasn’t too worried about looking dumb (though I resembled a spider on a tightrope) because at my age I’m pretty much invisible anyway, but I was a little worried for my knees and elbows. I didn’t know to be worried about falling flat-out face-down prone on the ice. Notably, that kind of fall also reverses the invisibility. I’m pretty sure I cracked a rib. The pain is complicated by the ‘bonus ab work’ the group exercise leader offered earlier in the week.
It was more fun to watch the other skaters. My favorites were the solo folks absorbed in their own thing. Skating backwards, or working on footwork, or practicing a spin. Others went gliding by in groups, happily chatting or singing along to “I’m Walking on Sunshine”, occasionally playing chase with their children.
We returned Sunday afternoon for another session, but the mix of people was worse. Little kids either zipped around like they were born on the ice or cluttered up the walls with their walkers. A clutch of reckless teenage boys alternated between speed and spectacular falls. One woman who should have been in the middle, what I began calling the deep end, kept practicing her circles and turns just a couple of feet from the wall and not watching out for other people. I was tense.
An older man offered me advice each time I lurched past. Bend your knees… Look ahead, not down... don’t move your arms so much. At one point we skated a couple of laps together. He said I was doing better, and I told him I wanted to be able to glide like the folks who made it look effortless. He asked me how long I’d been skating, and I said since Friday, and we both laughed. Bob is 84 and called me a young whipper snapper when I questioned whether it was a good idea to take up skating at 55. He said, “that’s about the time I stopped playing hockey.” But he still has the grace of adults with childhood muscle memory.
So will the college runners Mark and I saw Saturday at Furman’s Invitational meet. They seemed to glide across the grass. The Furman track families are a close-knit group who meet up and enjoy each other on race weekends all over the country. One family carries the flag.
When I first heard of the flag, I thought it was planted at, say, the tailgating tent so fans knew where to gather. I hadn’t realized, until yesterday, that the flag marks where on the course the Furman fans go to cheer their runners during the race. And it moves. “Follow the flag” was more than an instruction to find coffee and bagels in the morning. It was the directive to keep up and support the runners at various places throughout the race.
The flag shows the supporters where to gather, and the flag shows the runners where to look for their support. I think that rhymes with the Communion Table, or maybe in your tradition, the altar.
The first year we went to the church retreat, Emma was about three. She’d never participated in Communion. She confidently strode up the center aisle in front of me, accepted the piece of bread from Pastor Trish, dunked it in the chalice that Eric held, and the four of us watched it slowly dissolve and sink to sludge in the bottom of the cup. It was a long five seconds. Then Pastor Trish broke off another piece of bread, gave it to Emma, and guided her hand for a quick dip in the juice. I remember it every year.
My memory from this year will be Jack hopping down the center aisle with a compression boot on his newly broken ankle, and Emma giving him a little wave as he passed her pew of friends. Bread and Wine offered to all comers, promises lavished on us for healing and community and hope. For remembrance and for future dreams. Bilbo heading to the elves to write the account of his life; Frodo bracing to take up his calling. The Table meets us where we are.
Sometimes we’re the runners, grinding it out in the wind and spitting rain, and we look for the signs, like a waving purple flag, that encourage us to keep going and that show us where our people are. And sometimes we’re the flag bearers. The ones who run ahead to mark the spot to show support for our loved ones. Love is right here! Sometimes we’re the ones face down on the ice. And sometimes we’re the elders offering advice and a steadying hand.
Bob told me to keep at the skating. He said I just had to work on my balance. I should practice balancing on my weaker foot for one second, then my other foot, and work up to longer times. Left, right. Bread, wine. Lover, beloved. Eleventy one times and counting.
